


Echo

by mistilteinn



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Angst with a Hopeful Ending, Implied/Referenced Incest, M/M, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-25
Updated: 2019-02-25
Packaged: 2019-11-05 10:50:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,202
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17917340
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mistilteinn/pseuds/mistilteinn
Summary: It kills Diego to watch Klaus fall.





	Echo

**Author's Note:**

> This work is very different from the other pieces I've published on this site! It's short but sweet, and I really enjoy the idea that Diego lives in his head to an almost debilitating degree.

Moreso than any of their other siblings, Klaus was a mystery to Diego. There was something about him that was just - otherworldly. His gaze was always a million miles away, his feet never seemed to touch the ground when he walked - even his smile was unlike anything Diego had ever seen. The way it bloomed across his entire face, turning him sunwards.

He reminded Diego of a fairy, an elf, some kind of mythical creature from the storybooks that Vanya always carried around. From the first moment he remembered, Diego wanted to be around him, wanted to follow his wild brother to the ends of the Earth.

But life was not kind to Klaus - to any of them, for that matter.

When they were thirteen, Five left. Things got bad after that. Their father’s attention was concentrated more fully on the remaining members of Umbrella Academy, pushing them further and further to develop their skills. Diego got off pretty easily - his sessions were limited to investigating exactly what types of objects he could curve (almost anything) and how far he could throw them. Most of his training was based on increasing his strength, though he could never hope to compete with Luther.

Their father took a special interest in Klaus’s training - started to whisk him away for entire weekends at a time. Whenever Klaus returned, he was further and further removed from the boy Diego knew. Eyes wide and aware, darting around in search of threats. Hands shaking, steps hesitant. He’d creep up to his room and shut himself away for days, no matter how long Ben and Diego sat outside his door and waited.

When they were seventeen, Ben died. If Diego thought about it too hard or for too long, his chest would throb in pain - he’d double over, unable to breathe. Losing Ben was like losing a limb - he was inexorably a part of him, of them. Without him, the siblings became strangers overnight.

Klaus disappeared within two weeks. Vanya moved out immediately after Klaus left, almost as if she’d been ready and waiting for someone else to break the ice. Diego didn’t blame her. Allison followed, leaving less than a month later - though no one ever had to wonder where she was.

Luther just became angrier, turned into a shadow of their father.

Diego held on for as long as he could, hoping, waiting, wishing for his wild brother to return. He lay alone at night, praying for a chance to do it over, to make everything okay. If he could just go back, he’d stop Five from ever going. He’d keep Dad from taking Klaus on those horrible trips. He’d protect Ben from the darkness. He knew that everything would be different if he could just go back and try again.

The day after they turned eighteen, he left for the police academy.

He told himself that he wanted to continue fighting crime, that it had nothing to do with looking for Klaus. That excuse fell apart the first time they got a call for an OD and his heart stopped. He broke protocol, responded without the officer he’d been assigned to shadow.

Heart pounding in his throat, he almost broke down in relief when it wasn’t Klaus on the gurney.

That was enough to get him put on probation.

The second time it happened, he was sent to the police chief. He still remembers the way the old man’s mustache turned down at the corners, a startling echo of Dad’s constant disappointment.

Diego didn’t make it through the police academy. Something about his heart not being in the right place, according to the chief. Diego already _knew_ it wasn’t where it was supposed to be - he always felt it in his stomach when he heard a 10-50 called on his military surplus radio.

When they were twenty-four, the moment he had been dreading arrived. The 10-50 was for Klaus. After Diego got him out of the hospital and dragged him to a rehabilitation center (the best in town, according to his police buddies), he went out to a bar. Called a girl. Got so drunk he forgot his own name.

He and Eudora found comfort in each other for a while. Maybe in a different lifetime, things would have worked out.

As it was, he couldn’t focus on her. Prioritize her. Whatever she wanted, he just didn’t have it. He was just too broken. Too angry.

He tried not to think about Klaus. Things got better for a few months - he got a job, stayed in one place for more than a couple weeks.

Klaus came to visit in his dreams, but he didn’t mind that so much. This Klaus was younger, healthier, more whole than Diego had seen in years. His smile bloomed across his face, his countenance seemed to glow as he brushed Diego’s face softly. _“You could do it,”_ his eyes seemed to say, _“you could save me.”_

When they were thirty, Five came back, and his life went to shit again. Suddenly he was back in that damned house, fighting with Luther like they were teenagers again. Suddenly Klaus was there, watching them all with those wide eyes - his gaze careful and darting.

He was more fractured than ever - erratic, even. One moment he’d be staring at Diego like he expected him to attack, then the next he was singing, twirling around the kitchen in one of Allison’s skirts.

Even through the drugs, every now and then Diego caught a glimpse of the brother he once knew, the wild boy who was more at home barefoot in the forest than in his own bed. He missed that Klaus with a fervor that terrified him. He alternated between pushing him away and holding him close, unable to say no to any requests.

They danced around each other until the end of the world.

When they were thirty, suddenly they weren’t anymore.

They were thirteen again. Everything was the exact same as it had been. Everything was completely different.

He knew - he _knew_ that even though Ben was alive again and even though Five was sticking around this time, Klaus had already been fractured. He knew that he couldn’t save Klaus - couldn’t get his wild brother back. Diego couldn’t silence the whispers of the dead, couldn’t erase the memories of torture, couldn’t take away the urge to find comfort in hard drugs.

He knew that there was no way they’d walk down the path he’d once envisioned as a child. He knew there was no perfect, storybook ending to the love he held for Klaus.

And yet, when Klaus smiled brilliantly at him over breakfast soon after they arrived in 1992, he felt an all-too-familiar tug in his chest.

Later, when Klaus took his hand and pulled him into the observatory, the yearning was so strong that it nearly pulled him off his feet. Even later, shock reverberated through his entire body when Klaus tugged him close and brought their lips together for the first time.

Maybe Diego couldn’t actually save Klaus. But maybe he didn’t need to. Maybe it would be enough if he was just there for Klaus while he saved himself.

**Author's Note:**

> Let me know if you want me to write more in this fandom! :)


End file.
